Across the political, organizational and global context, the notion that the leader must have the highest level of intelligence seems to have gained recent popularity. This review examines that notion and highlights the issues from a review of academic research and personal experience of hiring, developing and coaching leaders over a 30-plus-year career in Human Resources.
Good leaders recognize the value in others. Good leaders have a keen sense of self awareness. Good leaders are not intimidated by other’s intelligence. A foundational question for leadership is do good leaders have to be the smartest person in the room?
In my experience as an HR leader for 30 years, good leaders ensure they are never the smartest in the room and recognize their value is bringing the strongest team together, not assembling a merry troupe of followers only focused on reinforcing the leader’s ego. However, understanding how to develop a team, and train leaders to develop their teams has been a struggle for many HR professionals. The literature gives clues to developing a team, the primary driver of effective team building is the leader (Mealiea and Baltazar, 2005).
While there is some credibility to the notion that intelligence correlates to effective leadership, the relationship is low and, interestingly, begins to diminish at the highest levels of intelligence (Judge et al., 2004). Individuals report that having an intelligent leader is a benefit. On the surface, that seems to make sense. Having a leader with intelligence, knowledge of the market and industry or some level of expertise seems wise. However, the research supports a diminishing impact of high intelligence as it relates to effective management. In essence, intelligence, knowledge and experience matters, but the leader doesn’t have to be the most intelligent, most experienced or have the most industry knowledge. Being the smartest one in the room isn’t always seen as a value.
Schriesheim (1982) challenged the foundational belief in leadership that effective leadership was characterized by initiating structure and high consideration for subordinates. The belief that the leader set the structure and focused resources and attention on subordinates was often thought to be the guide for leaders to aspire toward. Schriesheim’s findings concluded that the traditionally held belief that leadership effectiveness was based on the leader’s ability to add structure and consideration was indeed no stronger than other leadership qualities in assessing effectiveness. Once again, the literature seems to suggest that the key to effective leadership is not fully articulated.
A consistent theme of leadership effectiveness centers on the leader’s ability to surround themselves with the most effective team. Building a strong team is certainly a key element of success. However, most team building initiatives and training fail due to its very strategy. Mealiea and Baltazar (2005) identified three reasons team building often fails; reliance on external consultants, focus on off cite activities and failure to have a monitoring system for assessing progress. When thinking of creating a leadership training program, we often rely upon the training as a checkbox for completion. While leadership training may be a viable option, in and of itself, the training will not create a better leader but may create options and elements to learn and incorporate into one’s daily behavior to enhance overall leadership effectiveness.
Cohen and Bailey (1997) completed a comprehensive review of the literature on team effectiveness within an organizational context. The authors highlighted a number of recurring themes including team autonomy and cohesion as significant factors reported by participants and effective team outcomes. Their work reinforced the notion that a good leader needs to focus on the team, its purpose, independence and inner workings, not the intelligence of its leader. The authors also highlighted the difficulty studying leadership in a controlled setting and moving from academic settings often focused on college students and personnel in making comparisons to the general organizational population.
Leadership effectiveness is at its core multidimensional. Narendran et al. (2024) conducted a meta-analysis of the connection between emotional intelligence (EI) and leadership effectiveness. They concluded there was a constant positive correlation between effectiveness and EI, further cementing the connection that a focus on the leader’s intelligence is less important than how the leader interacts, manages and fosters connections with the group members.
Across organizational leadership, arts and sports, the dynamic of the leader as facilitator and not dictator lends itself toward long-term success. Far too often, immature, undeveloped or low self-aware leaders seem to cower at the thought that they are not the smartest person. It would be impossible for a leader to be an expert in everything. Pure ignorance lends itself to the negative notion that intelligence is more about speaking louder more often than it is about listening and guiding.
What does this mean to the practitioner? Contrary to some external or popular beliefs, a leader does not have to be the smartest in the room. Certainly, the leader needs advanced skills in facilitating, mediating, compiling and organizing individuals. A level of intelligence is necessary for success but diminishes its effectiveness as the intelligence level increases and surpasses its usefulness or overshadows the leaders’ ability to connect and relate to others.
When putting your team together keep these dynamics in mind:
Know what you are good at, know what you are not good at.
Identify individuals who bring perspectives to the table that are new, contrary to your beliefs and outside your realm of expertise.
Work on being a better listener.
Increase your skills in facilitating conversations versus leading conversations.
Embrace not knowing, and demonstrate to others that not knowing is expected!
One of my greatest accomplishments in executive leadership was building a strong team. What I didn’t immediately recognize when building my team was that putting together a dynamic team of aggressive experts with a diversity of experience and perspectives means a significant amount of conflict. As someone innately a peacemaker, it became both my Achilles heel and my perpetual savior. I’m not one who loves conflict, but I also recognized my skill at creating and managing diverse perspectives. My team became expert arguers, passionate arguers at times; that was their strength. My strength as their leader was to normalize the experience and recognize the skills and strengths that were brought forward. Our team was immensely successful in meeting organizational and financial goals. In the end, the team was strong and my takeaway was an enlightening experience about being a stronger leader through facilitating, listening and most importantly, knowing I wasn’t the smartest person in the room. Ironically, based on the performance of my team, I looked like the smartest person!
